When launching instances via the Hub, you can specify a root password as well as other configuration details for the specific appliance. The Hub is the recommended deployment option for TurnKey appliances.

May I ask why you are using the Amazon EC2 API?

To answer your question, the root password on all TurnKey AMI's is randomly generated (for security) and displayed in the console output when launching instances using the Amazon EC2 API directly.

I was referring to the boot.log which is available via the console output option. If I recall, the ec2tools command is:

ec2-get-console-output

BTW, seeing as you included a keypair when launching your instance, you can use that to connect via SSH, then change the root password manually.

Do you have any reservations to not using the TurnKey Hub? It makes everything a whole lot easier and less error prone. Understanding your use case would help us improve the Hub. For example, would a Hub API / command line tools be useful to you?